


Hideaway

by arcanemoody



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: (Because I said so), Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, Coffee Shops, Dark Past, Dreams and Nightmares, Dry Humping, Edward Nygma's Misuse of Forensic Science, First Kiss, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Ivy & Os are bros, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Making Out, Meet-Cute, Nonbinary Character, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Canon, Rating May Change, Scars, Secrets, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Sleepovers, Tea and Murder Talk, Touch-Starved, accidental misgendering, before the age-up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22929997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanemoody/pseuds/arcanemoody
Summary: A polar vortex coffee shop AU.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 34
Kudos: 79





	1. Chapter 1

When Hell finally arrives in Gotham, it freezes rather than burns. 

A polar vortex and the lowest temperatures in a hundred years sends the unlucky residents with intermittent heat scrambling. For the criminals and miscreants, finding a warming station _not_ under the oversight of the police department or Wayne Enterprises is difficult. Declarations and promises to neither report nor prosecute notwithstanding, some of them simply can't afford the risk.

Oswald himself is at a loose end when the final forecast is released. "Loose end" meaning in the GCPD's bird cage of a lock-up following a decidedly one-sided argument with one of Fish's patrons. The gentleman had taken exception to his drink and then he had taken exception to Oswald’s face, landing several punches including one that that made his eye bleed. To his shock, planting a paring knife in the oaf’s thigh had not been considered self-defense. 

Despite his protests, Detective Bullock ends up holding him for the maximum amount of time allowed without arraignment before turning him loose as if on a whim, right when the temperature drops down to -20.

"Too much paperwork," he laughs, equal parts dismissive and cheerful. "We've got the heat on blast, umbrella boy. Why don't you stick around? There's lots of company in the basement."

'The basement' meaning the warming station set up for the poor and the indigent; cold chicken sandwiches and weak coffee, too many people in too small a space. Oswald winces at the memory of being crowded into it as a ten-year-old, while his mother clutched his hand, cold and shaking.

Fish is out of town and any invitation he might have been able to manage as her junior henchman and valet gone with it. On balance, he suspects that’s why he was arrested in the first place: Fish's way of ensuring that her associate had a warm spot and a babysitter during the inclement weather. Space in Don Falcone’s strongholds was at a premium and needs must for the underboss with a large entourage. He supposes, once she returns, she will expect thanks for thinking of him. Imagining her in a pillar of fire as opposed to the nice beach she’s probably enjoying down south is… gratifying. He can admit that staying heated in his late mother's tiny apartment with its iffy radiator is often a crap shoot of the worst kind, but it would have been a viable option had he been allowed sufficient time to prepare for the worst. 

"No, thank you," he replies, clinging to a polite facade that feels threadbare after 42 hours. “As much as I appreciate your... _hospitality,_ my home is just six blocks from here.”

"Suit yourself," Bullock hands him the cane that's been propped against his desk. "But don’t expect an escort if you leave now. The snow’s piling up out there."

“Oh, I’m quite aware. Good day, detective.” 

He refuses to look back as he limps across the bullpen. taking a deep breath as he approaches the front door.

\--

He doesn’t make it six blocks. 

The snow itself is blinding in the early morning light, and the strong wind blowing it about is even worse. Oswald winces against the feeling like stinging nettles in the strip of his face left visible above his scarf. He barely makes it to the main road before it forces him to make a sharp left into the lane-way on Pickman Place. 

The Hideaway Coffee Bar is mercifully, shockingly still open. With extended hours from 5am to midnight according to the note on the door -- circled by hand-drawn bats, smeared from condensation that has long since evaporated in the extreme cold. Oswald spares a laugh for the caption at the bottom of the page:

_Free bottomless drip coffee to anyone not affiliated with the GCPD._

It’s perhaps a bold move for a business situated so close to police headquarters, but well-tied to the proprietors’ preferences. “Better personalities” and steadier income flow. Criminals in Gotham were less likely to demand things for free than than the cops (and more likely to reward favors). 

The strip had been a tanner’s space at one time, before the proprietor’s outside ventures — including the use of his shop floor as a moonlighting space for budding interrogators and executioners — had killed off his revenue permanently. The property sat fallow for almost a decade before Pix and a handful of associates purchased the entire block, re-purposing it to fit several lofts and commercial venues (corner bodega, tattoo parlor, coffee bar). 

Oswald leans heavily on his cane as he waits in line at the register. The air inside the shop isn’t much warmer than outside -- apart from the small pockets of heat emanating from the Edison lamps dangling from the rafters. The patrons closest to the entrance groan as more bodies scurry inside, hurriedly shutting the door behind them. He nearly trips over the chalkboard sign that would normally be on the pavement outside, currently situated next to the umbrella stand:

_EVERYONE ELSE IS WEAK (BUT WE ARE STRONG AND HERE FOR YOU)._

The chalk design of the death’s head latte art just below it is as fanciful and macabre as the rest of the establishment: they've leaned into their history, papering the wall behind the counter with grim newsprint headlines about the tannery’s exploits, splashed with a tell-tale splatter of red. The same pattern was on the barista's too-small apron.  
  
"Hey, Penguin," Pix smiles as he approaches the counter. "Large red eye?"

"Don’t call me that,” he replies, chattering teeth dissolving the majority of his rancor. “Black eye.” 

“To match?”

“Very funny. No Ms. Dahl today?”

He was more accustomed to seeing the tattoo artist’s paramour behind the counter. Commanding and memorable. Not many people were shorter than Oswald.

"Mary’s upstairs, keeping warm. And I’m not trying to be funny -- you look like hell.”

“Two days in holding.”

“And they sprang you when there’s an emergency warning to stay indoors?” they ask, shaking their head. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Our oven's given up but feel free to take your pick from the pastry bin."

Oswald almost declines the offer. He’s been floating on adrenaline since the arrest and the hours in lock-up with only a glass of water and half a sandwich pitched at him through the bars had nearly convinced his body that it didn't actually _need_ food. The bitter cold and Pix’s offer puts a quick end to that fantasy: his stomach already growling ferociously as he points to an almond croissant. 

Pix bags two of them and sets the bag on the counter, followed by two cups of coffee instead of one. 

He blinks, meeting their eyes.

“Am I seeing double?”

"I hope not. This one’s yours," she says, hovering inked fingers over the first cup before grabbing the second. "--and take this one to the back table for me? Skinny, spectacles, reading a _massive_ book on dead things, occasionally talking to himself. I scared him earlier and he's been looking twitchy."

Oswald stares at her, feeling his eyes dry out from failing to blink under the overhead lamps.

"I am not your _waiter_.”

"I didn't say you were,” Pix holds up both hands. “I'm short-handed, Oswald. Be a good citizen? He’s going to need that before he starts rattling the other lunatics."

Oswald stares, purses his lips before grabbing the second cup.

Pix's customer is smart enough to be hunkered down close to one of the boxy, electric heaters scattered around the premises. He has also, apparently, done something strange enough to scare everyone away from the open seat across from him at the tiny bistro table. Unusual, considering the sheer number of people who had crowded into the place, seeking a warm spot and free caffeine. Oswald elbows his way through the rabble, edging along the back wall before finally slapping the mug down on the stranger’s table.

If he isn’t _quite_ prepared for soft brown eyes behind half-rim glasses jerking upward in surprise... well. It means nothing. 

"Excuse me, I didn't order--"

"The proprietor says that one's yours,” he replies, pulling out the vacant chair. “I'm 90 percent certain it’s not poisoned."

"She…?" The stranger blinks at him, bewildered. He's more clean cut than the majority of the cafe's other customers: side parting, awful tie, drab earth tones that make Oswald’s stomach twist queasily. “I, um…”

Between the soft display, bitter cold, and sleep deprivation, Oswald feels his dwindling patience snap.

"Look, friend, _I don't work here,”_ he says, the deferential mask dropping completely. _“_ And my own order is still on the counter. If you don't want it, take it back yourself."

The stranger nods slowly, reaching into his jacket to pull out a crisp five-dollar bill. 

“Please? For her tip jar?” he says, flinching at Oswald’s visible impatience. “You don’t have to do it right now.”

"Did you not see the sign on the door?"

"I did. I also work with GCPD,” he explains. “She made me pay at the counter when I first got here."

Ah. 

Well.

He can’t be all bad, Oswald reasons. Pix had poured him a second cup and he evidently felt comfortable enough to stay cloistered in here instead of braving the storm. Oswald folds the bill into his palm, ignoring the slight spark from the other man’s fingers as he turns toward the counter.

\--  
  
"Was that what scared you earlier?" He asks a while later, having devoured both croissants and drained ⅔ of his drink in companionable silence.

"Pardon?"

"They said that they scared you. Was it because they made you pay for your coffee?"

" _Oh_ ,” he blinks rapidly, pausing to rub at his eyes; possibly a nervous tic. “No. I, umm... some have many, others few, physical or mental, before life is through.”

Oswald stares; a ghost of a question that his table companion seems to pick up on easily. 

"The answer is ‘scar.’ I inquired about her scar,” he sets his cup down, holding up both hands to demonstrate. “She has two of them cut vertically across the interior of her first two fingers and one that skirts across the back of her thumb at a curved angle this way. They’re faded but have similar keloid structure, indicating they were received at the same time but two separate strikes. I asked if she'd stopped a knife blade and, if so, what kind."

Oswald blinks, eyes abruptly watering, letting him know just how long he had been staring. He laughs in reflexive disbelief.

"Yeah, that's probably not the best conversation starter with _them_ ," he replies, emphasizing the pronoun. No doubt that was part of the issue, if the earnestness in front of him had led his companion to use the incorrect honorific _after_ a detailed summary of one of Pix’s worst days. 

Still, it was an astute observation.

"...yes, well," he replies, sheepishly. "They made it clear that it was impolite -- nay, _uncouth_ of me. So, coffee with a few drops of strychnine is probably within their rights."

Oswald smiles at the course correction. "You wouldn’t be the first person to die here. But Pix isn’t petty and they don't believe in overkill. Be nice and keep paying for your coffee. All shall be forgiven. Eventually."

"Do _you_ know how they got the scar?"

"Friend," he motions him forward, as if to whisper a secret. "I know _everything_."

Dark eyes sparkling with interest, a hint of a toothy smile appears and quickly disappears. 

“But you won’t tell me,” he says, as though it were a foregone conclusion.

“We’ll see.” Oswald checks his watch -- barely 10am. “In the meantime, I need a refill.”

He's halfway to the counter, cane in hand, when he realizes he's grabbed both of their empty cups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first Gotham story I ever started writing, back when the 2019 polar vortex in Chicago trapped me in my house for two days straight. The Hideaway is inspired by my local coffee bar in Logan Square, who also stayed open during the inclement weather.
> 
> Ariadne Pinxit (aka Pix) is a character from Scott Beatty's Batman: Gotham Knights. They are neither nonbinary nor dating Baby Doll (but where's the fun in that?)


	2. Chapter 2

The cafe is well-past capacity by noon. Oswald scans the crowd from his vantage point against the wall, the warmth from the heater loosening up the stiffness and residual pain in his knee and ankle. Five members of the Street Demonz. Two of Tommy Bones’ crew. Both keeping their distance from the four members of Rupert Thorne’s group who defected to Maroni after the old man’s death (still too green to be trusted and therefore merit an invite to a safe house during an apocalyptic storm). Most of them eye nastily each other from across the crowded cafe, caffeine and Pix’s rules barely keeping them in check. 

Oswald takes notes in the margins of his _Imre_ paperback, first in Hungarian, then German. The present company is as good a forecast of relations in the city as months of inquiry. He’s on his third cup of drip coffee, thinking how Fish might have done him a favor by abandoning him when his cell phone rings. 

His eyes widen as he reads the digital readout on the screen: the number that is still labeled _MOM_ in his contacts list and will be forever… 

He holds his breath as he picks it up.

“ _—Pengy, where’s your almond milk? This stuff in the fridge has expired,” Ivy Pepper’s voice is scratchy and she coughs twice before continuing. “Also, where are you?”_

“What are you doing in my apartment?” 

“ _It’s scary cold out. And Selina has a sore throat.”_

“Cat’s there, too?!” 

The skinny stranger looks up from his book, brow furrowed. 

“ _Her squat doesn’t have heat! And we couldn’t go to the warming stations. The cops are doing sweeps with ICE and CPS. People are freaking out. And you know what happened the last time one of those people showed up at my house._ ” 

“Yes, I remember,” he sighs. 

Mario Pepper's reputation was such that the social worker had turned up with a police escort. The old man had made quite the scene on the street outside of the club, personally trying to wrap one arresting officer around a telephone pole and taking a bullet to the knee from a second one. A lengthy, fruitless evaluation soon followed -- bad for Mrs. Pepper, bad for the child, bad for the entire neighborhood outside of Fish’s venue. 

“All right, both of you can stay for now. Are you warm enough?” 

" _Yeah, we’re fine. The radiator’s ticking but it’s putting out heat. We got the linens from the closet and we took the bedspreads off the beds—.”_

“Stay out of my mother’s room!” His shout is enough to quiet the room for a long moment, or that might be the sudden ringing in his ears.

“ _...we weren’t in there for long, I promise._ " His young neighbor’s voice is gentle when she finally replies. " _And Cat didn’t take anything. Your mom’s stuff is safe._ "

“It better be.” Judging by the Nina Simone he can hear in the background, they had already helped themselves to her record collection. The familiar song brings a lump to his throat, eyes watering for the second time this morning.

While she had escaped the early famine of Stalin’s flirtation with Lysenkoism, starvation had left its mark on Gertrud Kabelput. She knew the value of keeping a well-tended garden, particularly indoors (away from wildlife and sticky-fingered passerby). She paid the neighbor girl to care for their plants -- usually in sandwiches and conversation. The day that car jumped the curb, killing Oswald’s mother and breaking his leg in three places, Ivy was in their apartment when the police arrived. She was in the apartment again when he returned from the hospital, curled up under a patchwork throw on their old settee (the one that had been Oswald's bed ages 12-14, before they got the cot he currently sleeps on). She is often at the front door when he gets back from work, close to sunrise and scant minutes before most kids her age would at the bus stop, waiting to be whisked off to school.

He’s learned the art of the brown bag lunch and which plants to keep by the window. He is nowhere near as consistent in his schedule or his sandwich-making as his mother was (so Ivy constantly reminds him), but it’s not as though either of them have an alternative. 

_“Seriously, Pengy. We’re okay. Where are you?”_

“That’s…” he blinks, rubbing his eyes. “None of your business.” 

_“Well you’ve been gone at least a day and a half. I got here Tuesday. Did the cops arrest you?”_

“Ivy—- just. Don’t worry about me, all right? I’m fine. I’m having coffee and waiting out the cold with a friend.” 

_“Pbbbbt, who?”_

He rolls his eyes, lowering the phone.

“Excuse me,” he says, nodding to the stranger across from him. “What’s your name?”

“Wh-why do you need it?” he stammers.

“My little sister’s bugging me. She wants to know that I’m with a friend and that I’m okay. Help me out here?”

The stranger considers him for a long moment, evaluating. 

"My name's Edward.”

“I’m with Edward," he says, returning the phone to his ear.

_“Edward what?”_

“None of your business!” he shoots back, though he eyes his companion helplessly.

The nonverbal inquiry works. He retrieves a pencil from his breast pocket, scrawling at the top of the open page in his book. Oswald has to squint to read the rushed block letters between his own scribbled handwriting.

“Edward _Nygma._ ” Oswald replies, blinking at the man across from him.

Nygma.

E...Nygma. 

“ _That’s a fake name,”_ Ivy says, not remotely impressed. _“It sounds fake.”_

Oswald rolls his eyes. “If you want more almond milk, there should be an unopened box in the cabinet by the fridge. If it’s not there, there's a tin of coconut milk in the pantry.”

“ _Thanks, Pengy!_ ”

He flips the phone shut, burying closed eyes against his clenched fist.

“Is... everything okay?” Tentative. 

"Enigma? _”_ he asks, after a long moment. “That’s your name?”

Edward nods, smiling in recognition. Oswald feels his spine tense involuntarily at the sight of too many, too white teeth. 

"Since I was sixteen,” he replies, sitting more upright in his chair almost unconsciously. 

Oswald smirks, shaking his head and taking a drink of cooling dark roast. Only in Gotham.

“Those two scamps are playing my mother’s records.”

“Well, on the bright side, that means they still have power running to your place. Now you just have to worry about pipes freezing.”

Oswald is reasonably sure he left the faucet dripping two days earlier, slipping out the door on his way to work his shift at the club. If he hadn’t, he’s sure the girls know to do so-- or at least Cat does. Too many years of not getting caught squatting in empty apartments and abandoned buildings had honed the young pickpocket’s survival skills.  
  
“They let you change your name at sixteen?” 

Oswald had been made to wait until he was eighteen, subject to many fees and long lines in government offices: state ID, SSA, public library. His W4 had been the last to be updated, three years later when he went to work for Fish.  
  
“Emancipated minor,” he says, taking a sip from his own cup. “And the county clerks were all pretty familiar with me by then.”

Oswald stares, feeling his eyes dry out again as the silence drags on.

“...We’re not going to elaborate on that at all?”

“We’ll see,” he smiles. 

\--

Oswald is amending his notes when Edward stands up from the table. And up... and up. He has to crane his neck to look up at him. 

“I was just going to get something to eat before they run out. Do you want anything while I’m up there?”

"You're too nice to be a cop."

"What? _Oh,_ " he laughs nervously. "No. Well, yes. I'm a forensic analyst with the CSU. The medical examiner calls me in when there’s a crime scene."

It explains why he had recognized Pix’s scars, as well as the big book on dissection he’s been pouring through for most of the afternoon. Oswald nods, ignoring the cramp in his neck. Nearing three o'clock, lunch is probably a good idea (for both of their sakes). 

He returns with a croissant,a _rugelach,_ and two cups of fresh coffee. 

“They just had ham and cheese croissants left," he says, sliding the plate in front of Oswald. "Is that okay?”

"It's fine." Oswald shrugs, taking a bite and wincing as flaky pastry peels away and lands on the plate in front of him. 

"Contrary to popular belief, most species of penguins are carnivorous."

Oswald looks up, meeting earnest brown eyes, sparkling as if they had just shared a secret.

“Did you know that?”

He doesn’t know whether to be impressed or insulted that a crime scene analyst for the police department remembers the nickname he despises. Perhaps it's flattery -- a low-rung boy taking note of another straggler in ascent. Perhaps it was the two days of watching his colleagues taking shots at him in the cage. Or, perhaps, it's something else entirely.

Either way, he finishes swallowing. He primly lifts the cup, letting the steam waft under his chin before taking a bitter sip.

“I _did not_ know that. But I suppose they’d have to be, considering their environment... Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” Edward beams, impervious to Oswald’s hard stare (which he can already feel faltering).

“I guess I don’t need to introduce myself then.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I knew who you were from the moment you sat down.”

“That seems like an unfair advantage, don’t you think?"

Edward shrugs. “Not much to be done about it, I’m afraid. I have an eidetic memory. It's good in my line of work... but it can also get me into trouble.”

“Yeah, I could see that. What else do you know about me?”

“You don’t have a little sister, for one thing. Or at least you’re not known to.”

“Correct. I have an Ivy -- that’s better than a sister. Most of the time.” A lack of alternatives or no, he has grown accustomed to her meddling and complaints.

“I don’t have enough information to refute or confirm that.”

“No sisters, then. Only child?”

A tight nod. 

“Okay. Anything else?”  
  
Pensive brown eyes meet his, before reaching to take a drink from his own cup. 

“You should probably switch to decaf. You've had six shots of espresso plus all the dark roast." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oswald's book, _Imre: A Memorandum_ , was written under pseudonum by Edward Prime-Stevenson in 1906. His copy is a reprint from 1975 (which can be read for free online). It describes two men who meet by chance in a coffee bar in Budapest (and is written from the POV of one of the men, who is called Oswald). Which makes the "gay, coffee shop AU" genre nearly 115 years old.


	3. Chapter 3

Three (decaf) refills later, Oswald’s left knee is bouncing while his right is covered with pins and needles.

“It’s probably psychosomatic,” his companion offers before returning to his own drink, busily scratching notes about dead things onto a scratchpad.

Oswald himself suspects it’s more the lack of sleep plus his continued efforts to stay awake. Ancient instincts developed in Fish’s employ and seeded in a misspent youth among the other children of Gotham (all slightly more built for survival than he). Fatigue is a dangerous liability, so he attempts to distract himself. He gleans a few small amusements from the contents of his coat pockets -- here a butterfly knife, there a book of matches (in the club's trademark red neon). There are five left. He lights the latter one at a time, enjoying the brief flush of heat to his fingers and face as he blows out the first two. He nearly jumps out of his skin when Edward looks up long enough to blow out the third. 

“Fire hazard,” he says, sheepishly.

Oswald nods, fingers closing over the spent match. 

The chill is settling in further with every swing of the cafe’s doors. With frost building at the edges of the windows, the heaters situated closest to the exterior walls are shorting out. His eyes settle accusingly on the one next to their table as the pulsing slows and begins to sputter. He winces as the cold creeps up from his feet to his ankles and shins, numb tingling in his right leg verging on pain.

Distraction. Right.  
  
Oswald eyes the text book in front of Edward for a long moment before slapping his hand in the middle of the page. Edward looks more curious than startled when he meets his eyes.

“Yes?”

"Can I ask you a question? About forensics?"

The spark that brings to big brown eyes makes him hold his breath. 

“ _Yes_?" He asks, drawing out that one syllable with relish.

"The stain on the box around the heater?” he gestures towards the box across from them with his coffee cup. “Is that blood?"

Edward raises an eyebrow, glancing over.

"Hmmm… The arc of the splatter pattern would indicate ‘yes.’ But I’ll need to run a couple quick tests to know for sure." He pushes his cup across the table, along with another five-dollar bill. "More decaf? And I'm going to need a cup of filtered water."

“Does the temperature matter?” The image of blood in his past flashes through his brain: his mother’s laundry instructions “cold water for blood,” hot mop water for the bloody floors of Fish’s back room. 

“Lukewarm to cold.”  
  
\--

Mary is at the counter when he lines up to get their refills, seated on her high stool adjusted to accommodate her reach; pink-cheeked and far too happy for the kind of day her customers are trying to get through.

The former child actress keeps him busy -- asking after Fish and Ivy, did he get the black lillies she sent two months ago? Is he sure he’ll be able to carry two cups back to the table without his cane? She’s more than willing to help… All while Pix brews a fresh pot of decaf and he carefully blocks the view of the table. 

When he returns with both cups, Edward has an array of packets on the table lined up like toy soldiers in formation -- saline, iodine, ethyl alcohol, distilled water. The last one makes Oswald blink, confused.  
  
“What’s _this_ for then?” he asks, setting the cup of water down first.  
  
“Me,” Edward says, producing a pair of tea bags from his bag. White tea and lemon and ginger. “A cold, slow steep is actually better than boiling water.”  
  
“I’ll have to remember that,” Oswald says, focusing on the present. Specifically Long-fingered hands loosening the tops of bottles and tearing open a sterile swab. “What is this?”  
  
“ _This_ is a Kastle Meyer test,” the forensic specialist says, dabbing a drop from the distilled water onto the stiff cotton. “It confirms the presence of blood.” 

The water is followed by a drop from each of the other bottles. They both watch as the swab turns bright pink.  
  
“Confirmed. And this is a Hematrace strip,” he says, peeling the cellophane away from a plastic card. “It will tell us if it’s _human_ blood.”  
  
Oswald watches as he unwraps and wets another swap, swishing it in still another vial. Finally, he moves the swab across the card, the white square revealing a faint pink line… and then a second one.  
  
“It is!” he whoops, triumphant. Right before his grin falls, the meaning setting in. “ _It is..._ Oh, dear.”  
  
Oswald laughs at the swiftness of Ed’s mood change.  
  
“I told you wouldn’t be the first person to die here. I wouldn’t worry about it, Edward -- whoever they were, they probably had it coming.”  
  
“I’m not worried,” he laughs breathlessly, with an earnest expression Oswald… can’t quite read. 

He almost believes it. 

\--

The temperature continues to drop well into the evening. Two of the box heaters short out a few hours later, including the blood-stained one next to their table (to the chagrin of Oswald, his injured knee, and the winter-chapped patches blooming on his face and nose).

The setting sun does nothing to discourage the people sheltering in place, taking advantage of free caffeine. Mary and Pix extend the midnight deadline to 1AM and the latter spends an hour disabling the coin slot from the cafe’s only pay phone. The phone box, a near antique with scratched glass and graffiti, is bolted to the back wall, across from the washrooms and Oswald winces with every swing of a socket wrench and bumped elbows in the enclosed space. 

“Make the calls you need to,” they announce, removing their work gloves. “None of you want to spend the night sleeping on my living room floor.”

Oswald rubs his eyes, covers his face with his hands, willing the washroom line to move faster.  
  
The washrooms at Hideaway are gender neutral -- three stalls and a urinal in one, an accessible single-stall with grab bars for balancing in the other. Oswald’s knee is screaming for the latter while his painfully dry skin, his bladder, and a locked door eventually pushes him towards the former. Along with the line of brutes lined up to the newly free payphone. He bites down on a shiver as he steps into the dimly lit bathroom.

“Jesus, Penguin,” the figure leaning on the laminate traces a circle around their own face. “Isn't your species supposed to be used to this weather?”  
  
“Penguin, you know they’ve got meds for that kind of thing."  
  
“His face?”

Bernard. Tommy Bones’ brother and a legacy within Maroni’s crew. Recently made. And Adler, young Tank’s partner with the Street Demonz. More gall (and pyramid studs) than brains, zero leadership qualities. Oswald thinks the two of them are smoking initially before he realizes the smoke-like puffs of air... are their own breath.

Latrine conditions _and_ an unwanted audience. Perfect.  
  
“No trips down south for you two either, I see,” he says, moving toward the urinal.  
  
“You know how it is. The highways get crowded quickly in a state of emergency."  
  
"Yeah. Can’t exactly take the bike out in this either.”  
  
“Road safety,” he replies, relief washing over him as he finally unzips.  
  
“Right…” Bernie says, and the path his gaze takes down to Oswald’s leg and the cane supporting it is sympathetic. Hateful. Makes him want to break both of his. “Sorry.”  
  
“For what? ” he shrugs. “I confess I’m a little surprised. Debris and Eduardo didn’t seem to have any trouble getting a ride.”

“What are you talking about?”

Oswald keeps his gaze studiously focused on the wall above the urinal, bites the inside of his cheek. 

“Don Maroni picked them both up from holding yesterday," he replies, brushing his bangs back over his eyes as he finishes up and moves to the sink. "Paid their bail and off they went.”

“How do you know it was them?”

He flips the hot water tap to the hilt, waiting for the creaking pipes to yield some relief. 

“Dark and ginger? Short one wears glasses? Or… I guess he did before his face was bashed in. He’s lucky Bullock and Alvarez look the other way. He was talking so loud about a big score it was difficult to sleep.”

Two of Thorne’s old crew. Still in the city as far as Oswald knew, but the scene from holding is easily manufactured using the intel Fish had used to cut off Maroni’s supply line through Nikolai last month. Lots of hurt feelings there. Whispers of dissent. There was, as life had taught him, merit to sowing discord among men more concerned about holding on to the _appearance_ of prestige than cultivating it. 

He knows the trap is baited the second he shuts the taps off and turns to leave, catching the gangsters’ twin frowns in the mirror.  
  
\--

There’s a spring in his step as he makes his way back the table where Ed sits drinking his slow-steeped tea.

“Is that a donut?” he asks, eyeing the new plate between them. Vagulely circular cake donut, the raspberry drizzle on top is more of a haphazard pour.

“Half a donut. The pastry bin’s empty and Ms. Dahl made me give her a ten-dollar bill for it. She called it a ‘Bloody Mabel’... whatever that might mean.”

“I think you know _exactly_ what it means," Oswald smirks, picking up a fork to take a bite.

It's not a difficult guess. That particular crime’s headline, along with the others discovered at the tannery, is featured heavily on the back wall of the cafe. But the color it brings to Ed's face is charming.  
  
“Well, no more than anyone else, really..."   
  
”Is a fascination with murder a requirement to work in forensic science?”

“I am the bane -- and the pain -- of loved ones new and old,” he starts.

To Oswald’s relief, the rest of the riddle is interrupted by a scuffle across from their table: Bernie, launching himself at one of Thorne’s former bodyguards, Adler and two other Street Demonz joining the fray. The fisticuffs set off a chain reaction, toppling one table and crashing through another.

Pix jumps the counter, blocking the hunting knife one of the gang members attempts to drive into their face, pivots it. Before reaching toward the buck knife tattooed on their left forearm... and promptly flinging it into Adler’s throat.

A spray of blood hits Ed’s shirt, dark red on sickly green linen. 

His eyes are shining when they light upon Oswald. 

“That…”

His stomach clenches as he senses his companion’s awareness of the manufactured display and the answer to Ed’s earlier question. Unthinkable. Few people have ever caught Oswald in those moments, ever looked at him twice. 

“I suggest we find a spot next to a non-bloody, still working heat source. Would you care to join me?”

Edward nods, grabbing their cups to follow him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pix in the comics is a computer engineer who uses nanite technology to create and weaponize tattoos. I thoroughly enjoy the idea of this Gotham having 78rpm records, flip phones, and nanites all in regular use. "Bloody Mabel" is a reference to Mabel Mhurder, a killer for hire imprisoned at Blackgate and later recruited for the League of Assassins. Also, Debris and Eduardo are Eddie G. and Sid the Squid from "The Man who Killed Batman." I couldn't resist. Batman lore is a buffet.


	4. Chapter 4

Pix kicks them out half an hour after locking the front doors. After Ed helps Mary wash the dishes and sweep behind the counter and long after the last steady hum of the passing plow trucks has disappeared. 

The snow is still falling. There’s a low wall of black and gray slush nearly up to their knees as they make their way through the alley and out to the sidewalk. Oswald squints through the snowfall, attempting (and failing) to spot the traffic lights in the haze.

"Can I give you a lift home?" Edward asked, hands shoved stuffing into his pockets and a green knit scarf pulled up to cover half of his face.

"That's kind of you to offer, but I'm sure I'm fine..." Oswald replies, though the chances of finding a taxi at this hour in this amount of snow are rapidly diminishing. He mentally counts the remaining blocks against the height of the snow, how many potential disasters lay in wait for him along the way. The wind chill has dropped even further than it was that morning and he can already feel the skin around his eyes and brow beginning to tighten.

"...or, you could stay at my place? I'm just two streets over."

Oswald stares at the tall stranger in the snow, still earnest even as frost begins to form on his glasses.

"Do you have heat?" he asks, evaluating. 

"Yes! Sort of. Well, less than in there but more than out here."

"Let's go," he says motioning for Ed to lead the way. 

Gloved fingers slip between his as they stagger their way up the block.

\--

The "sort of" heat turns out to be a pair of space heaters and a nest of quilts on a double-bed in what has to be one of the only occupied lofts in the entire building. 

Oswald recognizes the green neon sign still flashing on the roof and the smell of burnt rubber and PVC clinging to the walls of the rickety industrial elevator. The Laffco Toy Corporation had gone out of business when he was still a boy and various development deals on the property had stalled until the two largest mob families decided, like Hideaway, the location was neither advantageous nor worth the price of demanding protection from the owners.

His new friend’s place is on the top floor. 

The melted snow has left them both soaking wet. Edward loans him thick socks, flannel pajama pants and an overly large t-shirt. He turns his back as Oswald strips out of his clothes, shivering in place until Oswald dutifully turns his own back. 

“I’m beginning to see why you were hiding out at the coffee shop,” he says, scrambling to tug on the new garments to escape the chilled air.

"It's close to work as well, in case I get called in,” Ed huffs, still shivering as he struggles with wet cotton and, what Oswald suspects from experience, the snaps on a pair of long underwear. “It’s difficult for me to concentrate if I'm in a space without other people."

“You were surrounded by criminals.”

“Not much different from work then,” Ed smiles. His glasses are off, damp curls falling across his forehead. It -- along with the too wide smile -- makes him look like a different person.

\--

Edward’s bed does turn out to be the warmest piece of furniture in the place, particularly after they angle the two space heaters towards each side. It’s oddly reminiscent of that last polar vortex in his childhood, urchins orphaned by circumstance, huddled together for warmth in a frigid, frozen wasteland. 

Ed steams milk on the stove while scooping decaf chai tea leaves into a single ceramic cup and what looks like a beaker with a handle.

“Sorry I don’t have much in the way of entertainment. I can put on a record if you want. Do you have a favorite artist?”

“Surprise me,” Oswald shrugs.

Watching his new friend is plenty entertaining. For both of them, he suspects, though Oswald’s own voyeurism sends a cold twist of nausea through his stomach, chasing the curious thrill of seeing Ed move through the kitchenette. Wearing another wool coat and fingerless gloves over his own pajamas just to navigate around his apartment, hair still damp and tousled. 

The phone vibrates on the floor and he bends down to reach for it. _MOM._ Again. He sighs, flipping it open and holding it to his ear.

“Why aren’t you asleep? It’s three in the morning,“ he says, in lieu of a standard greeting.

“ _Don’t change the subject,_ _Pengy. I can’t find the tuna fish. Which, you know, whatever. I don’t care — I’m vegan so I don’t eat it. But Selina does and she says sardines in hot sauce is not a good substitute_ ,“ she babbles, “ _And where are you?! The coffee shop closed an hour ago and the news says it’s -24 degrees._ ”

“I’m fine, Ivy! I’m at Ed’s place.”

_“Who?”_

“Edward.”

 _“The guy with the made-up name?!”_ Ivy shouts. _“Put him on the phone.”_

“Excuse me?”

_“Do it.”_

Oswald sighs, holds the phone out. “She wants to talk to you.”

Edward looks as perplexed as Oswald feels when he takes it, saying a few words of greeting to the 12-year-old girl on the other end of the line; mostly answers to seemingly random questions:

“6’1”... um, 130, I think? I haven’t checked in a while… I don’t really get into fights. Or arguments. Strong discussions only… Well, _no._ Involuntarily once or twice… I see. Okay.” He passes the phone back.

“ _He’s not an axe murderer,_ ” Ivy says, apparently satisfied with her assessment. “ _We’re good.”_

“Thank you so very much. Help yourselves to the pantry. There should be more tuna on the top shelf. Do not use the stove! Two of the burners need a match to light the gas and I do not need you two delinquents blowing yourselves up.”

_“Thanks, Pengy!”_

He flips the phone closed, looks up Ed’s brown eyes gazing at him curiously. 

“Don’t worry. She approved of your answers.”

“She was worried about you.”

“She has issues when people disappear without warning.”

Ed nods, eyes soft, like he can empathize.

“She’s wrong, though.”

“What? You _are_ an axe murder?”

“I’d have a much cleaner place if I was,” he laughs. “No, sardines have the lowest mercury content in commercial fishing. They’re high in omega 3’s and they can also be eaten straight out of the tin. In terms of being a substitute for tuna, they’re _more_ than adequate.”

Oswald realizes he has a death grip in the top of his friend’s quilt when he reaches to hand him his tea. 

“65 cents at the corner market,” he muses, the smell of cardamom and cinnamon filling his nostrils.

“Not perishable, portable,” Ed echoes, clinking his beaker full of tea against Oswald’s cup. “...and you don’t need a can opener.”

He makes a mental note to ask Ed which neighborhood he grew up in. The apartment he and his mother lived in was technically in Tri-Corner, but in the old days, they had lived in the Narrows close to the harbor. On the fringes, where his mom’s skills as a cook and a seamstress had kept any number of predators from their door, but she still kept a bag packed in case the landlord got greedy. He’d watched her teach half a dozen neighbor girls to do the same thing. 

Oswald doesn’t reveal all of this to Ed, but it’s on his mind as he sips his tea, digesting Ivy’s unheard questions and Ed’s replies. Threat assessment, no doubt using her own father as a template. A pre-teen pickpocket and plant enthusiast is worried about _him_ and his safety. It should be laughable -- because he’s _29 years old._ And because Edward, with his big Bambi eyes and blood typing kit, who is visibly frightened by angry baristas and the possibility of being seen without a shirt on is _not_ a threat. 

“Is the tea okay? Right temperature?”

Oswald nods, almost smiling as the ginger warms his throat.

He feels surreal -- drinking tea, wearing clothes that smell like washing powder, wrapped in a blanket that’s worn and soft in a way he’s not familiar with. He also hasn’t shared a bed with another person since he was twelve years old, when the perils and indignities of puberty had led him to sleeping on the sofa, while his mother had a full mattress to herself (and, for the first two nights, wept over it).

Crawling into Edward’s bed is what he imagines sleepovers were like for other boys when they were younger. This is also the first time he’s slept away from home since the hospital. He wishes he could stay awake long enough to fully absorb the experience -- particularly once Edward hits the lights and scrambles long limbs under the bed linens. But caffeine crash along with the hours he spent in lock-up and seated on a hard-back chair in the shop are catching up with him quickly.  
  
“Is that _Stormy Weather?_ ’”

“Too on the nose?” he asks, tugging off his coat and gloves.

“A little bit. At least it isn’t _Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”_ Oswald laughs, _“_ I might fall asleep soon,” 

His eyes are already slipping closed, even at the new weight on the mattress and the tug of the quilt covering both of them.

“I don’t imagine it was easy to sleep at the station. Rest, Oswald.”

\--

Dreams about that day are common. The sedatives he occasionally takes to deaden or delay them are in the evidence room at the GCPD, if they didn’t find their way into Bullock’s pocket. So when the dream hits, his nerves are exposed, wrecked and raw as ever.

_It’s raining, the streets glassy, storefronts gray and dark. His mother’s wearing her dove gray coat, smiling as he props the umbrella over her head._

_‘Such gentleman, my son.’_

_Whenever he and his mother have to walk anywhere, Oswald always walks on her right, closest to the street. The light rain turns to a downpour half-way through their errands. Oswald winces when the streets start to flood; dark, fetid water pouring up out of the gutter, over the curb (and his shoes) when the sewers can no longer hold the overflow. Turning onto Kane Street, he walks ahead of his mother, to see if the fromagerie she’s had her eye on is still open._

_It’s Tuesday; street-cleaning day (ironically). Meaning there are no parked cars between them and the Chevy Bel Air that jumps the pavement. His mother’s blue eyes sparkle with life for just a few seconds and then they’re still forever._

_Oswald’s leg buckles under him and he screams into the open sky._

\--

The nightmare is enough to wake him up, gasping for breath; lungs full of frigid air, face tight and damp with sweat that’s already turned cold. His right leg and hip are hot from the space heater, his left side warm and immobilized. 

Edward stirs under the covers next to him, blinking in the dark, a large hand on his shoulder, apparently oblivious to the way he’s already draped against Oswald.

“Are you okay?” 

“…yeah,” Oswald whispers back. Their heads are nearly on the same pillow and he can feel the hot puffs of his new friend’s breath on his face. Beneath the sound of their breathing (his staggered, Ed’s steady), there’s the hum of the heaters, distant hisses and pops from the record player as Billie Holiday starts the song over. “Is that…?”

“I think I fell asleep with the turntable on repeat,” Edward rasps.

Oswald blinks, slightly dazed in the dark. “Are you going to shut it off?”

Ed shakes his head, shifting the pillow beneath his jaw. “It’s too cold to get up yet.”

Oswald falls back to sleep mid-nod, unable to keep his eyes open. There’s a shift on the mattress, dipping toward the middle and, in the haze before he loses consciousness completely, he leans in to the warmth of the arm that slides around his waist.

—

Billie Holiday is still crooning in the background when he wakes up again. 

The daylight makes a valiant effort against the cloud cover but is still no match for the snow that refuses to stop falling. Oswald can see piles of it whiting out the glass of the skylight. He hopes the panes don’t buckle under the weight after withstanding such cold temperatures for almost two days.

Ed is already awake and sitting up on the mattress with his back against the headboard, cordless phone in hand.

“I know, Captain Essen, and I’m really, _really_ sorry… Three feet, well, 28 inches to be specific. High enough I couldn’t get the exterior door open.”

Oswald blinks, pulling the edge of the quilt away from his face. Ed holds up a hand, then a finger in front of his lips. Silence. Quiet as a mouse. He covers his mouth reflexively.

“I mean, though… I guess I _could_ try. My building does have a fire escape and it almost reaches the second floor-- All righty, thank you, Captain!”

“We’re snowed in?” Oswald struggles to sit up mentally bracing against the idea of walking home in more than two feet of snow. 

“I... may have exaggerated.” he smiles again, too many, too-white teeth. Oswald smirks. “It _is_ still -18 degrees. That’s not safe for even brief outdoor exposure. I don’t anticipate leaving the house either way...” 

They’re both under the covers, facing each other, curved like parentheses. Oswald’s hand covers Ed’s forearm, Ed leans into his space.

“Is there coffee?”

Ed's answering smile is beatific.


	5. Chapter 5

Ed makes more coffee. Medium roast in a french press, then espresso in an antique Bialetti on the stove. 

He dons a flannel dressing gown instead of his coat as he makes brief trips from the bed to retrieve snacks, swap records, make sure the windows aren’t leaking. Whistling along with Dinah Shore or Rudy Vallee. Oswald watches it all appreciatively, blankets pulled up to his chin. The pomade from the day before has long since given up, allowing inexplicable curls to settle on his friend’s forehead, bouncing as he makes quick work back to the bed, two cups and a plate of toast in hand. 

“Jam?”

“I prefer savory to sweet,” he says, relieved to see long fingers dance past the preserves to grab a bottle of spicy mustard. “My mom used to have an espresso maker like that.”

“The moka pot?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “It comes in handy. I got it at the kitchen surplus on Owl Street. Have you ever been there?”

“No.”

“It’s where Tokyo Rose worked. After the Defense Department released her from Leavenworth.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. Once the courts found out all the witnesses at her trial had lied and the military realized that they couldn’t actually _confirm_ treason, her sentence was commuted but not pardoned. After twenty years of false imprisonment, she was out, and couldn't get another job in broadcasting. So, Mr. Yamadera hired her as a cashier, then promoted her to day manager and that’s how she finished out her career.”

“Mr. Yamadera? On Owl near 8th Street?” 

“Yes! Right across from Lorde’s Tavern. That has quite the interesting history, too! Did you know that?”

“Dive bar, cooler of bottled water up front, wood chips on the floor, punk shows in the back?” Oswald shakes his head, clearing the cobwebs gathered around an ancient memory. Tired of all ages shows on Left Bank, he’d scaled the back fence more than once to watch Jeri Arzner or Dogs of War surrounded by fifty or sixty dark dressed bodys, swirling and cavorting as the music played. A restless teenager denied entrance and defying gravity with the help of a stack of palettes from the alley . 

Ed nods. “And once upon a time, it was kind of a lowkey dark room.”

Oswald held onto his cup, abruptly scared of dropping it.

“Okay, I _would_ have heard of that.”

“You probably have!” Ed smiles. “Mabel Mhurder was a frequent patron. So was Fish Mooney.”

“... did it have a different name before?”

“Maybe.” Ed’s smile is secretive and teasing. “I am known as a king. The jungle’s where I reign. It is hard to tame me--”

“I’m never going to get this. Just tell me.“

“Lion’s Tavern,” Ed replies, unfazed by his guest’s impatience.

“Oh! Rex Calabrese. That does make sense.”   
  
The former kingpin had died a few years before Fish ascended in the ranks under Falcone. She had talked about getting stitches in the back of his place, while her assailant (a gentleman in Rex’s employ) was strangled, dismembered, and stuffed into an oil drum two feet away. The legendary “Lion” held her hand the entire time, speaking in a soothing tone.

“Exactly. Still a lot of activity around that street that suggests it might have a gangland connection or two.”

“Well, if it does, I haven’t seen any of it. But it has been a year since I saw my last show there,” he watches the sleeves of Ed’s dressing gown with a nervous jolt. “Be careful near the stove!”

“I’m being careful,” Ed smiles.

The espresso is quickly followed by a pot of milk that Oswald initially thinks is being steamed for lattes, but with the addition of lemon juice, immediately recognizes as homemade farmer’s cheese. Salted and spread on toast, followed by the spicy mustard. The ingenuity is appropriate for a flat that, in the light of day, Oswald can see is outfitted with numerous found items: second-hand, homemade, re-purposed. Innovation brought on by poverty and an obviously keen intelligence.

The heater closest to the bed picks that moment to sputter and short out. Oswald feels his nerves jump, adrenalin flooding his body as the screws supporting the plates begin to shoot sparks, forcing him to abandon the blankets to pull the plug from the outlet. The jolt in his hand is low, but raises a shiver in the frigid air of the loft. 

“And then there was one,” Ed sighs, setting the plate on the dresser next to the bed. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” Oswald says, startled when a large hand settles on his shoulder, warmer than a thousand blankets.

The casual intimacy is disarming, even with the necessity the extreme environmental conditions have placed on them. If Oswald is responsive, if Ed is more free with it than he might normally be with others (of course Oswald doesn’t know that)… but. Well, he hopes neither of them are ignorant of what that _might_ convey... 

He would say he’s been wrong before if he had ever bothered to try for a more intimate entreaty than that of friendship. Those had still been rebuffed with varying degrees of vehemence -- as benign as a dirty look, as dangerous as attempted drowning.

He doesn’t _think_ Ed would drown him.

“Would turning the oven on help?”

“Worth a shot! It won’t heat the whole place. That’s an ongoing problem with loft spaces. But it’s proximity to the bed means we’ll at least get some--”

The shot shatters the window pane next to Ed’s, dropping broken glass into the kitchen sink. Oswald moves to duck and tumbles to the floor, tangled in the overlarge quilt. Several more pops outside signal a nearby conflict. The grace period the polar vortex had granted the citizenry 

“Armed robbery,” Oswald thinks aloud. “That was definitely on this block. Someone probably hit the pharmacy across the street.”

"Oh... crud."

"Are you okay?" he asks, pushing the blanket off of his knees and ankles. "Did it get you?"

"Unlikely,” he says, staring at the hole in the glass. Oswald could almost see the moment the forensic scientist took over. “Ricochet. That’s unusual -- we’re on the top floor. Downward trajectory, 45 degree angle, that’s _really_ unusual. The bullet's in the floor. Or the wall maybe? Either way we’re unlikely to have another shot through the window."

"Ed, you're bleeding."

Brown eyes darted to stare at Oswald, then down to the tear in his sleeve, his hand moving to it as if in a daze.

"Ah, yes. Be right back." he says, all but running for the tiny bathroom.

Panic in his throat, Oswald lets maybe thirty seconds pass before he staggers over to bang on the door. 

“Edward? Edward, are you okay?” 

_“I’m okay. Could you tape the window for me? Duct tape’s in the apothecary cabinet, top left drawer. I’ve got some scrap wood in a box next to it…”_ his voice drops, immediately followed by the sound of something hitting the wall. “ _...there’s probably a piece large enough to block the cold air_.”

“Edward?”

_“Please?”_

Oswald stumbles, scanning the rest of the apartment for the details Ed describes. The cabinet ends up being a large standing piece of furniture reminiscent of a library card catalog. Mental snapshots of the contents of each drawer stay with him as he hurriedly shuffles through each one in search of tape (paperclips, nails and bolts, walnut hulls, dissection tools). Finding it, he digs through the salvaged box next to the cabinet, grabbing the largest piece that might block the spot where the glass was and maneuvers it in place as best he can. 

“Got it.”

“ _Okay, good…_ ”

“Are you all right?” he pushes the door open, not waiting for Ed to answer.

His friend is standing at the sink, stripped to the waist. His right arm is red with blood from shoulder to elbow. His left arm moves to cover himself, making pained brown eyes wince even as Edward himself makes no noise at all. 

Oswald’s eyes move to his friend’s bare chest: the broken line of a badly-healed collarbone, shoulder dislocation, scar tissue once dark but now silver with age. 

"I’m okay,” Edward cuts in, too sharp. Too afraid, as if Oswald himself is something to fear. 

“ _Are you_?”

“Broken glass, probably," he lies, as if Oswald wasn’t in the room when the stray shot shattered the window.

"I don't see any glass." It looked like a graze. Even bleeding as freely as it is, he’s not surprised the shot failed to jolt Ed from where he was standing. 

"Me neither.” His teeth are chattering. “C-Could you hold the mirror for me?"

"What?"

"I need to be able to see in order to do my stitches and... I can't really see in the mirror above the sink."

Oswald moves closer, eyes drawn to his friend’s most recent wound. The bullet has left a gash two inches long and half an inch deep, oozing fresh blood that trickles down his right bicep. Leaving his non-dominant hand to do the work. Oswald shakes his head.

“Pass me the needle.”

“Have you done this before?” Ed asks, skeptical.

“I watched my mother do it.” When their downstairs neighbor had robbed the corner bodega to pay three months of back rent and the owner took umbrage. His mother had unloaded a leather-wrapped kit from her closet, told Ugne’s sister to watch the door; told Ugne’s mother to go back to the apartment and lock the door. Told nine-year-old Oswald to go sit on the sofa and turn up the record player to cover any noise. 

Fortunately, for Ed’s sake, he’d managed only to do half of what he was told. His pulse still jumped at the sound of Bing Crosby. 

The formality of forensic medicine seems to relieve some of the tension in his friend’s stance.

“Start with the sutures: right to left, parallel stitches, quarter inch apart. There’s a box of nitrile gloves over there. If it keeps oozing, we may need to finish with cyanoacrylate.”

Krazy glue. Jesus. Oswald does as directed, grabbing the gloves , paper-wrapped gauze pads and alcohol wipes. He tears through the latter with his teeth. Wiping the dried and drying blood away from the torn skin.

“Does that hurt?”

“Probably,” the taller man replies, absently. “I’m in shock, so everything is a little remote for me right now.”

Oswald nods, focusing on his fingers as he cleans the area, unwraps the gauze pad, and -- finally -- passes the needle through the torn skin. 

“Finish your riddle? From yesterday?”

That, at least, seems to be an effective distraction.

“I am the bane — and the pain — of loved ones, many and few. I feed without eating, leave marks without bleeding, yet from my gravest ends, all life begins anew. What am I?”

”A dead body.”

“That’s one acceptable answer. Grief is another. Or just… dead things, in general.”

Oswald eyes the largest scar, deepest at Ed’s rib cage, where a curved belt buckle wrapped around. It resembles a question mark. Punctuated by a darker scar just below it -- not as old as the other, circular, like a cigarette burn. Self-inflicted. An impulsive (if crude) reclamation.

“Tell me more about loved ones and dead things?” he asks.

“I can tell you about dead things. I cannot say they were particularly loved. Not by the time they were dead anyway.”

Long fingers fold in the crook of Oswald’s arm, sending a jolt of electricity up to his shoulder and neck, though the fawn-like gaze remains fixed on some spot on the floor.

In. Out. In. Out. 

“Another riddle?”

“In name we may be the same, but I am there for you even before your beginning, everything you are is mine, folded in or driven out… What am I?”

“Family,” Oswald replies. He wonders how bad the family had to be to warrant emancipation and a name change. Maybe by the end of this, Ed will tell him.

“You seem more inclined to answer when you’re emotionally connected to the question. Did you know that?” Ed’s smile is fond, weighted at the end with a darkness that makes Oswald’s throat ache. “I was not a good son.” 

“I’m sure that _she_ was not a good mother.”

“She tried. She was who she was.” His smile falters. “The man she married was worse.”

Oswald focuses on the task at hand, wondering how he can discreetly question Ed further on this subject at a later time. He wraps the final stitch, closing it off with an overhand knot and clipping the end of the sutures.

“The stitches are done.”

“Okay. Blot the area with the gauze… Is it still bleeding?” Ed turns to gaze at him over his left shoulder. 

“No.”

“Okay. Good. Get another gauze pad and soft dressing. There should also be some petroleum jelly on the dresser.”

Oswald follows his instructions by rote: blotting, dabbing the jelly delicately over his stitches, wrapping the dressing twice and sealing it with medical tape. By the time he’s done, he feels like he’s been holding his breath for hours. 

“...good job. You’re better at field medicine than half of the cops I’ve met.” His smile is bright, nearly back to his normal self, even with his raw voice and shivering.

He hugs Ed around his waist, careful to avoid his bandaged arm. Waits until the free arm finds his shoulders before leaning his face up.

He’s never kissed anyone before. Has never particularly _wanted_ to kiss anyone before. He suspects he’s not very good at it or has certainly muffed this first effort. But Ed’s long-fingered hands come up to tentatively frame his face, then his ribs. 

Ed’s lips are warm from the coffee, vaguely citrusy, with an edge of bittersweet notes from the shot. Stiffening as he succumbs to a full body shudder. Oswald feels it down to his toes, crowding Ed’s space instinctively, arms locked around his neck as he tilts his head, lips parted like he’s watched others do in the shadows of Fish’s club. One time, he’d managed to get a glance at an even more compelling image outside the Foxglove: a young couple, dressed in work clothes, stealing a kiss under a street lamp as though the act were far more illicit than anything they’d gotten up to within the club’s soundproof walls. 

Illicit.

Romantic.

Ed kisses him back and the world comes together. Ed’s lips part, one knee coming up to bracket Oswald’s hips, hands at his waist, hoisting him the scant few inches to keep their mouths connected. Their chests drag across each other, bellies and ribs and cotton that smelled like detergent and sweat. Stumbling backward...

“Oh dear…Umm. I think I'm in the sink?”

“Yeah,” Oswald swallows. “Are you…?”

“I don’t know,” Ed breathes. “The evidence is compelling.”

“I’ve wanted to do that all day,” he confesses, his own teeth chattering now. “Do you want to take this in there?”

“I haven’t...” Deer in the headlights.

“Me neither. But it’s _really_ cold and I can’t stand for much longer.”

“Okie-dokie.”

He sighs into his mouth, Oswald’s leg throbs and, with a shuffle of limbs, they’re back on the bed, both horizontal, heads at one corner of the mattress, world shifted.

“I shouldn’t put weight on my arm.”

“I can’t lie on my right side,” Oswald replies. “Sit up.”

Ed sits, crab-walking back until he’s sitting against the pipe-fitted bed frame. Oswald sits up on his knees, inching forward until Ed can grab his hips, helping him straddle the taller man’s thighs and straightening his right leg. 

“I don’t know how to…I can’t…”

“Just this. Okay?” It’s not as though he’s equipped for anything else in this moment. Simultaneously freezing and overheating. “Grab the blanket? It’s cold...”

Ed nods, reaching past Oswald’s hip and drawing the duvet up around him, enclosing them both in a small cave. 

“Okay,” Ed breathed, chest heaving. “...okay.”

“Will you kiss me?”

A nod in the dark. 

Oswald shivers at the touch of his friend’s mouth — big and lush and warm. They take turns sucking on each other’s bottom lip, the warmth and darkness afforded by the blanket making everything feel heady. He feels Ed‘s left hand move to his waist, fisting the hem of his borrowed t-shirt. Oswald’s lips part on a gasp as questing fingers slide underneath and across his ribs. Ed uses the opportunity to lick inside his mouth, past his teeth. 

“Can I... “ someone asks.

“Yes!” The other answers. The precise science of who calls and who responds is lost, but Oswald’s pretty sure the dark hum is from deep in his own chest somewhere; provoking a growling rumble from Ed’s. 

Their position is precarious and heat pulses low in his belly: he can’t grind his hips down against Ed without hurting his knee. Ed’s own vigorous movements are restricted by Oswald’s weight and the stitches in his arm. Still, Ed manages to lurch forward, tipping him back under the blanket. 

“Is this okay?”

“Yes. yes…”

Caged in by long limbs and heavy bedding, it shouldn’t be okay. But he slides his hands down to Ed’s hips and re-directs the pace. Slowing it down, making them both whimper. And everything is more than okay. Ed’s elbow gives out and he feels every inch of his skin along his right side, from the underside of his arm to the inside of his thigh. He gives a single thrust... and that’s enough for it to be over. For both of them. The two of them moaning, licking and biting into each other’s mouths even as their movements slow and energy deserts them. 

Oswald feels cold air fill his lungs as the blanket falls away and Edward rolls onto his side, chest heaving, limbs lax. He plucks the glasses from his friend’s face, eyes glassy and huge with wonder as Oswald’s lips lay claim to his brow, his hair.

“Oh, my… oh my…”

This is how Oswald finally sleeps without dreaming, his lips buried in damp brown curls, and Ed’s long fingers shielding his heart.

\--

“The toast is cold.” 

Oswald nods, smiling. “That’s okay. Are there any sardines to go with it?”

“Yes! Bottom shelf of the cabinet over the sink. I’d better do the dishes before the pipes freeze.”

“Want some help?” He asks, eyeing his companion’s slim hips, clad in new (clean) flannel pajama pants as he moves from the bed to the kitchenette.

“Sure. I’ll wash, you dry?”

“Of course.” Oswald carries his plate with them. The sardines in tomato sauce make a great pairing with the cheese and the spicy mustard. 

“This is really good,” he says, rinsing and drying the empty plate. “Did you make the bread, too?”

Ed nods, smiling.

“It’s all chemistry, really -- yeast, salt, flour, water. The cheese is a little harder. Ricotta or farmer’s cheese is the easiest to make at home. For anything aged, you need rennet or mesophilic cultures to encourage elasticity…”

Oswald lets him talk, only half-absorbing each word as he focuses on brushing against those slims hips as often as possible, washing down the last bite of toast with cold coffee.

“You can buy ready-made rennet, either derived from collagen or plant sources. Nettles are easier for me to get from the market than the pre-made stuff from Kane Street.”

Oswald, eyes fixed on the sharp line of Ed’s shoulder blade, stills. His mind flashes back to the day of the accident. The “closed” shop sign and a notice from the city he’d struggled to read in the pouring rain...

“The place on Kane Street closed in September.”

“...did it?”

The cup shatters in the sink.

The knife is in his hand and against Edward‘s throat in seconds. Oswald pushes at his shoulder to face him, crowding him back against the far wall. The plate Ed was rinsing crashes to the floor in several pieces, a small backsplash of dish water misting the cuffs of their pants. Ed’s eyes are startled but quickly darken, pupils dilating as fight or flight kicks in.  
  
“How did you know who I was yesterday?” he asks, mentally prepared to have to draw it out of him slowly. 

He’s less prepared for the immediate reply. 

“I assisted on your mother’s autopsy three months ago.” 

“Were you the one who said it was an _accident?_ ” he asks, feeling his heart rate speed up in his chest.

“I don’t write the reports. The medical examiner does that. My conclusions were significantly different from his.”

“Tell me. _Now!_ “

“Vehicular collision. Two injuries, one fatality. Inclement weather -- there was a flash flood warning issued for the neighborhood eight minutes before the incident. No tire marks on the pavement or the sidewalk, but the evidence would have been washed away or distorted by the heavy rainfall. The car could have hydroplaned and swerved when the driver realized that they couldn’t brake. Except the traffic cameras at the intersection showed it stopped at the red light a block down which would have impacted forward momentum. At least one eye witness said the sedan _sped up_ before it jumped the curb.”

An eye witness who had handily disappeared before the reports were written, no doubt. Oswald’s hand shakes. He fists the other one in Ed’s t-shirt.

“Go on.”

“Tan Chevy Bel-Air, four-door sedan, traveling an estimated speed of 40-50 miles per hour given the state of the body…The first collision slowed the momentum. That’s why the impact only broke your leg.“

“...It was supposed to be me.“

“Most likely, given Detective Bullock‘s level of interest at the scene. He was working overtime to keep Montoya and Major Crimes out,” he says. The tenor of his voice is almost soothing before he returns to his evaluation of the scene. “Further up the street, I found two types of broken glass. The smaller fragments were tempered -- blue tint, consistent with commercial glazing. The larger fragments were Type III soda-lime glass, most commonly used for soft drinks and liquor bottles. I pieced together the neck of the bottle enough to retrieve a partial thumbprint. You may want to wear gloves in the future. Just in case.”

“You identified me from a _thumb print_?” 

“No. You cut yourself. Here,” Ed’s Finger tracks the faint scar on the inside of his thumb, the rest of his fingers closing around the slender wrist. “Probably when you threw the bottle. The blood was a mitochondrial match to your mother.”

“...it was _raining._ ” 

“There was enough left on the glass for one swab. I was able to confirm with a second swab when you were in recovery from surgery.”

“You were in my room _at the hospital?_ ” Oswald swallows can feel his pulse slackening, rage hanging on by a slim thread. “Did you see…?”

There had been a brief moment in the hospital where he worried the “accident” had been at Fish’s orders. That she knew about his connection with Major Crimes or had seen the spark of ambition in him, taken light as recent discussions of Falcone’s age and slackening grip grew more frequent. Sensing the threat that he would become. 

He’d held his breath as she stood at his bedside in the recovery ward. Waited for Butch to draw the blinds while their boss hit some buttons on a panel attached to his morphine drip or drove those sharpened nails into his carotid artery. Muzzy and grief-stricken, a small spike of adrenaline broke through the haze and died the second she touched his face. 

_“My poor boy.”_

The anguish that she _did not see him_ was worse than he could have imagined. He’d slipped away with his patron’s fingers on his face and tears in his eyes, wanting nothing more than for the current to take him, to have died on that sidewalk next to his mother. He woke up alone instead, with a clay pot of white stargazer lilies next to his bed and a strong desire to live. 

“No one else was there. I waited until your room was empty and I swabbed the cut on your hand,” Ed replies, blinking as though he’s only now understanding the implications of his actions. “It was non-invasive. No one had even bandaged it.”

“You didn’t tell anyone.”

Ed shakes his head. “The GCPD would need to be pretty invested in finding the driver to charge you with shattering the rear windshield.”

“It doesn’t sound like you were terribly invested either.”

“I was… curious. You were questioned. I thought that if you hadn’t told them everything that you knew, there was probably a reason for it.”

Oswald eyes the place where the blade is pressed into Ed’s skin, pink blossoming underneath the sun-kissed bit of flesh his collar doesn’t cover. Right above the jut of that badly-healed bone. How would anyone with a clean past possibly know that?

“Where is _your mother_ , Edward?” he asks, stomach tightening at the possible answer.

“He got to her before I got to him. There was no time... I tried but she was already gone. I was wiping down the knife handle when the police arrived. With the small time frame, it made it easy for them to confirm a murder-suicide. That _is_ what they wanted it to be. And what could a ten-year-old boy be doing with the murder weapon, but trying to cover for his darling mother who finally fought back? Before slicing her own throat?”

Oswald takes in a tense breath. After a long moment, he sets the knife down on the counter, relief washing over him when a large hand cups the side of his neck. No hard feelings. Apart from the obvious -- which is making itself known against his hip.

“What a clever _scamp_ you are,”he says, unable to suppress a shiver as he leans into the taller man’s space. “You’re wasted working for the cops.”

“Maybe. But as you can see, we are... similarly unencumbered,” Ed observes. “Surely that should make the path ahead easier for the both of us?”

Oswald shakes his head. Ed’s arm moves to encircle his shoulders, the smell of blood from his stitches, the blood on the side of his neck, antiseptic, dish soap, sex. He loves it. Loves _all_ of it.

“A cleared path still doesn’t account for timing. The timing has to be perfect. To account for all the players and variables.”

“We’re both of above average intelligence--”

“Oh, considerably. But it’s what you know _and_ when you can use it,” he says, moving the knife from the counter to the sink, emphasizing his point...

“Are you angry with me?”

“No. I’m impressed.”

That, of all things, earns him the brightest smile yet. 

—

The temperature’s rising outside and a pair of texts on his phone soon informs Oswald that he will be returning home to a half-empty kitchen and two tween-age girls as well as escorting his patron home from the train station twelve hours from now. Forcing him to leave the cozy respite they’ve built here in Ed’s loft. Ed seems to sense the pang he feels at the news.

“Thanks for the extra clothes.”

“It’s no trouble,” Ed replies. The softness of his tone forces Oswald to look up from buttoning the green linen shirt.

“I hate being at her beck and call.”

“I’m not looking forward to returning to work myself. My co-workers aren’t the most appreciative of my talents.”

“They’re idiots,” Oswald says, his own vehemence surprising even himself. “...you are right. About the cleared path. I do suspect we could both be moving towards our full potential when we are each able to make a sharp turn.”

“Oswald? I come from across the water, and it’s to water I most often return; To ground, to green, by fire and steam; I can make your heart flutter and your mouth burn. What am I?”

“You said so earlier — I’m no good with riddles if I can’t feel it out.”

“Coffee. That’s the answer. Would you consider getting coffee with me? Again? Some time?”

The jittery nerves of a confessed killer. Oswald’s fingers are tingling. His skin is tingling all over as he reaches for Ed.

“Yes.“

“Yes?“

“I‘ve considered it. I say yes.“

He pounces.

\--  
  
Seven weeks later, the weather finally warms up. 

When the last of the snow melts, when Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down in the street; when Ivy crawls in through the window after the GCPD slaughters her father… Oswald makes her a sandwich, and makes his sharp turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lovely bit of non-Batman lore: Tokyo Rose actually moved to Chicago and finished out her career at the J. Toguri Mercantile Company, an Asian supply store on Belmont. Right across the street from the L & L Tavern (which has it's own notoriety in the true crime world, lol).
> 
> Many thanks to everyone who's been keeping up with this story. I promise it won't be another eight months to the final chapter. Comments welcome!

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Gotham story I ever started writing, back when the 2019 polar vortex in Chicago trapped me in my house for two days straight. The Hideaway is inspired by my local coffee shop in Logan Square, who also stayed open during the inclement weather. 
> 
> Ariadne Pinxit (aka Pix) is a character from Scott Beatty's _Batman: Gotham Knights_. They are neither nonbinary nor dating Baby Doll (but where's the fun in that?)
> 
> [tumblr](https://arcanemoody.tumblr.com/).


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